A big part of the Turkish military is trying to eradicate most democratic rights for the masses. Their goal is to put Turkey under their iron rule. They get the support of the Great Powers and an important sector of the ruling class. Revolutionaries have to fight this coup attempt whose objective is to intensify the oppression of the working class and the Kurdish people.

The reason for this coup is that Erdoğan has not sufficiently served the interests of the western Great Powers and the Turkish capitalists. He tried to keep some independence while establishing a presidential police state with him in power. However the coup is in the first line not directed against Erdoğan, but against the popular masses and the Kurdish people and their already limited democratic and social rights. Revolutionaries still have to consistently politically oppose the bourgeois-reactionary AKP which tried in the last years to undermine democratic rights and oppress our Kurdish brothers and sisters. But we oppose any military persecution of the AKP. This expresses not our political sympathy but underlines that the main enemy of the workers, peasants and poor is the military!

Down with all reactionary assaults on democratic rights! Stop martial law, the occupation of our streets, bridges, airports and cities! The actions of the military are a declaration of war against the masses of the Turkish and Kurdish people. The army command doesn’t care about democracy and human rights. The cynical “defense” of the latter by the military is just a pretext for them to do the same as in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. They want to secure the power for a tiny elite and smash any popular resistance of the masses.

In order to defeat the military coup we need mass actions of the workers and poor! We call for a broad united front of workers and poor to defend democratic rights! The trade unions need to organize an indefinite general strike immediately that lasts as long as the putschists are in power! We need to build anti-coup committees in every neighborhood and workplace; the economy and the transport have to be shut down. Block every road, bridge and rail to stop them from moving, build self-defense committees! For international solidarity with the struggle against the coup in Turkey! Workers and revolutionaries need to build a close relationship with the ordinary soldiers and convince them that the coup-officers and generals are the real enemies. They station the soldier in our streets and neighborhoods, lets show them that this was a big mistake!

Build the revolutionary party in the struggle! The workers’ fists will break the iron chains of dictatorial military rule!